A variety of medical procedures are performed to treat various female pelvic dysfunctions, including procedures to treat urinary incontinence, and correcting various prolapse conditions such as uterine prolapse, cystoceles, rectoceles, and vaginal vault prolapse.
Known implants are configured to provide support to a patient's body to treat stress urinary incontinence. Some known implants require that a single bodily incision be made and are positioned or tensioned by controlling how far into the tissue the end portions are deposited or pushed into the anchoring tissue. Such known implants, however, can be difficult to correctly place and tension within the body of the patient.
Some known implants require that entrance and exit incisions be used to place the implant within the body of the patient. The tension within the body of some such implants may be adjusted at a time after the procedure to place the implant within the body has been completed. Some of these implants make use of sutures that are bio-resorbable so that the sutures will not be a long term irritant to the body of the patient. Such bio-resorbable sutures, however, can be expensive and time consuming to manufacture and package. Some of these implants include sutures that are not bio-resorbable and are configured to remain within the body of the patient. These sutures may cause pain and/or infection. For example, in some devices, the sutures remain extended through the obturator foramen and can be painful to the patient.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide an implant that facilitates the positioning and tensioning within the body of the patient at a time after the procedure to place the implant within the body has been completed. Additionally, it is desirable to provide an implant that allows the suture to be removed from the implant after the implant tension has been appropriately set.